Messaging technology is a pervasive wireless data technology. Short message services (SMS), and now multimedia service (MMS) are used to support the following types of subscriber data services: Peer-to-peer subscriber text messaging; notifications, such as voice-mail indications, message waiting indications, etc; value-added applications and services. Value added applications and services includes: information services, such as stock quotes, weather reports, sports scores, ring tones, graphics; telemetry and telematics services, such as meter reading, shipment tracking; mobile marketing services, such as branded campaigns, promotions, contests, quizzes, etc.
These data services use different addressing schemes: mobile directory number (MDN) physical (geographical) addresses are typically used for peer-to-peer text messaging and notifications and short code logical addresses are typically used for value-added applications and services.
MDNs are the common mobile phone numbers used for voice calls. In World Zone 1 (primarily the U.S. and Canada), the MDN is required to follow the ten-digit format of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) which is based on the ITU-T E.164 standard. This format is supported by both GSM networks (as the mobile station integrated services digital network or MSISDN number) and ANSI-41 networks for CDMA and TDMA (as the mobile identification number or MIN).
Short codes are numeric addresses (from 1-20 digits, but typically 4-10 digits) used by wireless carriers to enable access to message based value-added applications and services.
There are still major technical issues to be resolved with the use of short codes. Among the most important of these issues is the short code addressing, translation and routing method used for SMS. Currently, there are major problems with the use of these short codes: short codes are not a standardized address scheme; short codes are used in a proprietary manner by individual wireless carriers; short codes are routed to destinations in a proprietary manner by individual wireless carriers.
The use of common short code (CSC) addresses among wireless carriers is required for any type of SMS-based value-added application or service that is to extend to users beyond a single wireless carrier's subscriber base. CSCs enable subscribers from any wireless carrier to access the same application or service in the same way from any location, provided that roaming agreements exist. Common short codes are now available in both the U.S. and Canada.
Common short codes enable applications, services and brands the ability to interact with the entire wireless base in a consistent manner. As an example, corporations could implement mobile marketing campaigns or services that included a CSC and be assured that their customers could access these with any wireless phone, regardless of carrier or location.
Today value-added application and service providers either connect themselves directly to wireless carriers, or more commonly through aggregators. This invention applies to both. In addition, aggregators can use this invention internally to route messages to their down stream value-added applications and service providers—that is the aggregator gets traffic from wireless carriers, and it's the aggregator that performs the lookup of the destination address by means of the short code translator.
Currently, each carrier provisions short codes manually, requiring a coordination between the operational teams of the carriers and the operational team of value-added service providers or aggregators.
Currently short codes are logical addresses within the telephony numbering plan. But the application servers tend to be reachable via a data network such as the Internet or the SS7 network. Hence a mechanism is needed to map the short code to physical addresses (like an IP address of an application platform, or the associated network address of the Signal Transfer Point (STP) associated with a Service Control Point (SCP) in the SS7 network) at the SMSC or the Short Message Entity (SME) Gateway of a wireless carrier. Providing some physical meaning to the format of the short code can greatly simplify their use.
One the destination address of the application server in the data network name space is known, the SMSC or Short Message Entity (SME) Gateway can open a messaging connection with the application server by means of one of the many messaging protocols such as Short Message Peer to Peer (SMPP).
Today, the mapping from short code to the application server address in the data network is done manually at each carrier. That is, when a short code is approved, each carrier manually provisions and tests the connection. This is both expensive in labor as well as time consuming. This approach will not scale as more and more value added services are created. This invention allows for the total automation of this process.
A basic one-to-one correspondence between a single short code and a single high-level application entity may not provide enough utility. Ranges of short codes can be deployed hierarchically to enable application granularity for a variety of services, applications and programs.